Researchers in England are attempting to build a desktop computer that runs on light rather than electronics.
A $1.6 million research project starting in June at the University of Bath is focused on developing attosecond technology, which refers to continuously emitting light pulses that last just a billion-billionth of a second.
Fetah Benabid of the Department of Physics at Bath will lead a team to develop new ways to control photons in much the way current computer technology controls electric fields. Focus is turning to photons as it becomes increasingly difficult to squeeze more oomph into traditional computers by shrinking silicon chips, which can only get so small according to the laws of physics.
The Bath researchers are using new photonic crystal fibers to make advances beyond current optical fibers.
"Harnessing optical waves would represent a huge step, perhaps the definitive one, in establishing the photonics era," said Dr. Benabid in a statement. "Since the development of the laser, a major goal in science and technology has been to emulate the breakthroughs of electronics by using optical waves. We feel this project could be a big step in this."
Photonics are a ripe area for research, with companies such as IBM working on photonic chips and outfits such as BBN employing photonics for purposes of network security.
The Leader in Network Knowledge
It's the United Kingdom not
It's the United Kingdom not England.
"There has not been a Government of England since 1707"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_United_Kingdom
And what if it had been the University of Wales?
Would it be wrong to say "researchers in Wales"?
England is part of the
England is part of the United Kingdom, but still an existing country within that kingdom, as are Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland (Republic of Ireland is -not- in the UK). So it's fine to say researchers in England, or researchers in England, UK. Saying Scotland is in England though, that's a no no.
Thank you
Wanted to make sure I had my facts right before accusing somebody of being a pedant.
Offtopic
Is it true that Scotland will separate from the UK? Is this a wish of overwhelming majority of Scotland's people or its just a delirium of SNP members?
Are you kidding me?
Was it that important?
No Frontiers
Science without frontiers...
The character of computer
The character of computer science research can perhaps best be appreciated by seeing some of the things computer scientists do and why they choose to do them. In Part Two, computer scientists explain not only some of the results achieved in several areas of computer science research but also what interests and excites them about the research. The diversity of the topics addressed in these essays reflects the diversity of the field itself.
The essays in Part Two are organized by chapter into several clusters:
Exponential growth, computability, and complexity. How computer science research makes possible a sustained growth in computing power and how theoretical models of computation help us understand intrinsic limits on what is computable (Chapter 2).
Simulation. How computer models can be used to simulate aspects of the physical world (Chapter 3).
Abstraction, representation, and notations. How abstraction is used to express understanding of a problem, manage complexity, and select the appropriate level of detail and degree of generality (Chapter 4).
Data, representation, and information. How computer science has developed new ways of storing, retrieving, and manipulating data, and how these techniques can profoundly influence the models of a wide range of professionals (Chapter 5).
Achieving intelligence. How computer science’s aspiration to emulate human intelligence has resulted in advances in machine learning,
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Romeo y Julieta
im agree width you
im agree width you men!
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Rodolfo